Louis-Emile Durandelle
Louis-Emile Durandelle (14 February 1839 – 12 March 1917) was a French architectural photographer. Durandelle is best known for his documentary photographs of the construction of Parisian buildings, including the Eiffel Tower and the Paris Opera.
Also recorded as Edouard Durandelle · Louis-Émile Durandelle
Louis-Emile Durandelle

Louis-Émile Durandelle · The Cleveland Museum of Art · John L. Severance Fund · CC0
- Name
- Louis-Emile Durandelle
- Born
- 14 February 1839
- Birthplace
- Verdun
- Died
- 12 March 1917
- Place of death
- Bois-Colombes
- Nationality
- France
- Occupation
- photographer
- Languages
- French
Reference Check
Propose documentary evidence for Louis-Emile Durandelle. A contribution is never written directly as fact: identity, source, rights and evidence gates still decide.
Sign in to contribute
World of VALÉORINE
Documentary connections
Only confirmed graph relationships appear here. Images are shown only when their identity and reuse rights both pass the documentary gate.
Documentary evidence
Documentary basis
Authority files
wikidata · Q15556390 · wikipedia · Louis-Emile Durandelle
In this article
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Louis-Emile Durandelle • Born — 14 February 1839 • Birthplace — Verdun • Died — 12 March 1917 • Place of death — Bois-Colombes • Illustration — Louis-Emile Durandelle, The Eiffel Tower - State of the Construction, 1888
Career
Career
From 1854 to 1862 he worked with Hyacinthe César Delmaet and Dalmaet's wife Clémence Jacob as the company Delmaet & Durandelle. The trio lived and worked from 30-32 Chaussé de Cligancourt in Paris. After the death of Delmaet in 1862, Durandelle married Dalmaet's widow, who kept the name Clémence Jacob Dalmaet. By 1868 the company was operating from 4 Rue du Faubourg Montmartre. Following Delmaet's death, Durandelle documented the construction of the Hotel-Dieu de Paris, Sacre Cour, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the theater at Monte Carlo and the 1882-1884 excavations under the Louvre Museum. In 1871 Between 1870 and 1871 he photographed the Paris Commune, the insurrection against the government of Napoleon III. Durandelle published a portfolio in 1876, in collaboration with Charles Garnier, titled Le Nouvel Opéra de Paris: Sculpture ornementale, documenting the Paris Opéra's sculptural decoration. He photographed the construction of the Eiffel Tower from 1887 until 1889. After the death of his wife in 1890, Dandurelle sold the photography business, along with its negatives, to his assistant and stopped taking photographs.
Gallery
Gallery
• Illustration — Ornamental Sculpture of the New Paris Opera • Illustration — Ornamental Sculpture of the New Paris Opera • Illustration — Construction of the Paris Opera, 1864 • Illustration — Construction of the Paris Opera, May 1864 • Illustration — Great staircase of the Paris Opera, 1865 • Illustration — Circular vestibule of the Palais Garnier, 1864. • Illustration — Paris Opera arch detail. • Illustration — Workers on Girders of Auditorium, New Paris Opera.
Identity and origins
Identity and origins
The authorities additionally record the headings Edouard Durandelle and Louis-Émile Durandelle. His recorded language was French. He married Clemence Jacob Delmaet.
Identity
Identity
Louis-Emile Durandelle is recorded as photographer.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 2 entries
1839
Louis-Emile Durandelle born at Verdun.
1917
Louis-Emile Durandelle died at Bois-Colombes.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Verdun.
Birth place
Bois-Colombes.
Death place
Collections
Collections
• Art Institute of Chicago • Canadian Centre for Architecture • Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine, Paris • Getty Museum • Metropolitan Museum of Art • Minneapolis Institute of Arts • Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art • Musée d'Orsay, Paris • Museum of Modern Art, New York • National Gallery of Art, Washington • National Gallery of Canada • San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Documents and archives
Primary material
Documents and archives
authority record
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q15556390: Louis-Emile Durandelle
General reference · Wikidata
reference work
- “Louis-Emile Durandelle”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
Literature
Scholarly footprint
A count of publications is evidence of attention, not of standing, and is given here only as a measure.
Text attribution
Licensing
Text attribution
Part of the biographical narrative on this page reuses licensed material. Its origin, revision and licence are recorded here.
The biographical narrative on this page is based on the Wikipedia article Louis-Emile Durandelle, revision 1365249843 (EN edition), by its contributors. VALÉORINE has edited that text and built its own documentary record around it. The reused material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and this page's reuse of it is offered under the same licence. Everything else on this page — the chronology, the holdings, the evidence, the plates and the connections — is VALÉORINE's own record. Sources and licences.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Naissances, Mariages, Décès (1839-1839) (2 E 558 (85)) - Archive. Mnesys.
- 2.Leblanc, Charlotte. Architectes et photographes au xixe siècle. Publications de l’Institut national d’histoire de l’art. 978-2-917902-62-2.
- 3.GAIA 9 : moteur de recherche. consultation.archives.hauts-de-seine.net.
- 4.Louis-Émile Durandelle (French, 1839 - 1917) (Getty Museum). The J. Paul Getty in Los Angeles.
- 5.Nilsen, Micheline. Architecture in Nineteenth-Century Photographs: Essays on Reading a Collection. Routledge. 5 July 2017. 978-1-351-57598-0.
- 6.Artist Info. www.nga.gov.
- 7.Bernard, Bruce. One Hundred Photographs. Phaidon Press. 25 October 2002. 978-0-7148-4278-3.
- 8.Frizot, Michel. A New History of Photography. Könemann. 1998. 978-3-8290-1328-4.
- 9.Hannavy, John. Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography. Routledge. 16 December 2013. 978-1-135-87327-1.
- 10.Louis-Émile Durandelle. www.clarkart.edu.
- 11.Louis-Emile Durandelle. The Art Institute of Chicago.
- 12.Bas-relief de la partie supérieure de la voûte - Vestibule octogone. www.cca.qc.ca.
- 13.Le Nouvel Opéra de Paris : statues décoratives. Groupes et bas reliefs. Cité de l'architecture & du patrimoine.
- 14.France), Musée national des monuments français (Paris. Photographier l'architecture, 1851-1920: collection du Musée des monuments français : Musée national des monuments français, 18 mars-20 juin 1994 [et] Musée des beaux-arts de Marseille, Palais Longchamp, 1er juillet-1er septembre 1994. Editions de la Réunion des musées nationaux. 1994. 978-2-7118-2962-0.
- 15.Louis-Emile Durandelle. www.metmuseum.org.
- 16.Le Nouvel Opera de Paris- Statues Decoratives, Louis-Emile Durandelle; Editor: Durand et Cie ^ Minneapolis Institute of Art. collections.artsmia.org.
- 17.Louis-Emile Durandelle – Artists/Makers – The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. art.nelson-atkins.org.
- 18.Musée d'Orsay: Louis-Emile Durandelle Construction of the Eiffel Tower, 1887. www.musee-orsay.fr.
- 19.Louis-Émile Durandelle MoMA. The Museum of Modern Art.
- 20.Louis-Émile Durandelle. www.gallery.ca.
- 21.Durandelle, Louis-Émile · SFMOMA. SFMOMA.
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
authority record
Secondary witnessreference work
Secondary witness
People, houses and institutions
Knowledge graph
People, houses and institutions
Teachers, collaborators, publishers and institutions recorded against this person, each on a stated basis.
Born at
1- VerdunPlace
Established from a fact already recorded on a verified source.
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 18 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Photography
11,392 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- Louis S. SlevinPhotographer
- Louis StettnerPhotographer
- Louis Walton SipleyPhotographer
- Louis-Camille d'OlivierPhotographer
- Louisa Bernie GallaherPhotographer
- Louisa Elizabeth HowPhotographer
- Louisa M. HerrmannPhotographer
- Louisa TenisonPhotographer
Best supported in this field
For owners
Own a work by Louis-Emile Durandelle?
A specialist will read what you send and tell you what the house can establish, what it cannot, and whether the object is suited to sale. There is no charge and no obligation. The object stays with you throughout; nothing is shipped to us unless it is arranged in writing beforehand.